The course website and blog for the Fall 2016 instance of Penn State's SC200 course

Why Females Wear Makeup

It’s very rare that I’m not wearing at least a little bit of makeup everyday. A little bit of powder and mascara to class and I’m usually good. Going out though is a different story. I have to have a full face of makeup including eye shadow, eye liner and a Kylie Lip Kit of my choice. Why is it that girls try so hard on their makeup? Why do we even bother wearing it?

Red Lips

It is told to be true that men are most attracted to girls with red lipstick on. As perhaps vulgar as it sounds, this article states that red lips can represent the woman’s labia when it is aroused.. probably not most guys first thought. It also says how red lips should be topped off with some lip gloss to make them look “moist and shiny”. According to Psychology Today, woman at a bar wearing red lipstick were approached faster than women with other color lipstick or none at all.. strange. Even Jessica Rabbit who has been named the “sexiest cartoon character” on multiple occasions is a bearer of red lipstick. No coincidence there.

Women tend to put a main focus on eye makeup. On and around the eyes are a typical spot for aging to be seen, so getting a focus away from wrinkles and putting it on shades of eyeshadow and a dark liner can perhaps make a woman look more youthful. The same goes for foundation. This liquid makeup is put on the entire face covering up all blemishes and wrinkles to the best of its ability.

Blush

When women are going through their ovulation cycle, they are more sexually aroused (Psychology Today). This arousal causes them to blush and causes men (or other women) to be happy about that. Therefore, by females wearing blush as a part of their makeup routine, it can turn someone on to them signaling that they are ovulating even when they are not.

In conclusion to all those reasons, makeup just generally makes us girls feel more confident. If were having a bad breakout, we can just slap on some coverup and BAM, gone. (I bet guys wish they could do that sometimes). When we look better, we feel better. End of story.

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9 thoughts on “Why Females Wear Makeup”

It’s interesting how a thin stroke of eyeliner can have so much influence over someone’s self approval and happiness. This topic made me wonder if men do prefer women with less makeup or women who sport a natural look over women who wear more makeup. However, after researching this question, I realized it varies from study to study, because there are too many confounding variables and it really depends on the person. Yet, class blog posts like Women in Red and Does the Color Red Make You More Attractive elaborate on what you mentioned about the attraction of red lips and the color red being associated with women in general.

Caroline,
A lot of what you mentioned in your article is talking about other people, why women wear makeup to grab the attention of someone else, but what if that’s not the case for a lot of us? I know personally I don’t wear makeup to impress anybody else, it just makes me feel a lot more confident and beautiful, which is why I wear it for one person and one person only – me. I definitely don’t ever put on red lipstick with the intent to grab guys’ attention, but because I like the way that it looks on me, and I definitely don’t think about how my blush “turns someone on” when I wear it.

I thought that this post was very interesting because it gives the biological side to why we feel like we look better. I found some more tactics that women use to make them seem biologically more attractive to men. Foundation is used to make our face look clear because clear skin means that they are healthy, and therefore will pass healthy genes onto their offspring. The rest of the steps explain how to look younger, because basically men want younger women because they are known to be more fertile than older women.http://www.xovain.com/how-to/sexual-selection

I think girls wear makeup up mostly for themselves. If you feel more confident wearing a little make up I think you will feel better about yourself. I know whenever I think I don’t look good I don’t have that good of a day. I think wearing makeup is a way for girls to feel good about themselves and to raise their self confidence.

What’s funny about this is that I almost never wear makeup, mostly because I have no idea how to do it, and yet I related to things in this. When I do look for makeup, specifically lipstick, I’m almost always attracted to the color red. It’s actually the only color of lipstick I own. And when I look at other girls wearing makeup, it makes me feel as though I should definitely learn how to do it on myself.

Hmm, the point about men being more attracted to red lips caught my attention. Sometimes I feel as though men are attracted to nude colors on the lip, but red is a promiscuous and bold color so that makes sense. Leading up to high school, I have become more interested in makeup and art of doing it. I was always fascinated by the girl at mac who did my makeup for prom, and how they can really transition a face from one look to the next.

I never thought there was so much science behind make up! I love make up but I just think of it as expression because I do different things with my face depending on my mood or boosting my confidence if I decide to slay my make up when I’m not feeling so great. This is actually mind blowing.

I think your post is super relevant. I usually wear minimal makeup, but like you said, going out is a different story. I think part of it is related to fitting in with everyone else. It has sort of become a social norm to wear makeup when all dressed up. I also agree with what you said about it making girls feel more confident. I would be interested to see a study done on this topic, specifically the red lips hypothesis. I also would be interested to see what boys say on this topic. They have it easy, and never have to worry about what makeup to wear and when to wear it.

This post was very interesting. I usually wear makeup because it makes me look older and without it, I feel like a twelve year old. I also prefer the way I look with it on. It is very common for guys to say girls look better without it, but in the end, it is the girl’s choice on what she wears anyway. I had no idea all of the different types of makeup are related to things that you mentioned in your article.